Art in Review; Meschac Gaba

By HOLLAND COTTER

Published: March 4, 2005

'Tresses'
Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street
Through March 27

When she came to the Studio Museum in Harlem as curator, Thelma Golden, now its director, promised to put contemporary African art on the exhibition schedule, and she has done so. Yinka Shonibare had a solo; Chris Ofili will have one this spring. And the first solo show in the United States of new work by Meschac Gaba, born in Benin in 1961 and now living in the Netherlands, is on view now, organized by the museum's associate curator, Christine Y. Kim.

Mr. Gaba contributed installations to Documenta XI and to the 2003 Venice Biennale, and has one in the exhibition ''Africa Remix'' in London now. The slippery power of globalism is his theme, this time embodied in a series of modest-size sculptures resembling architectural models. Most depict New York City landmarks of general or local renown, from the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan and the Guggenheim Museum to the Harlem branch of the Y.M.C.A., along with some buildings in Benin.

From a distance the work looks like soft sculpture, which in a sense it is. Apart from an invisible metal armature, each is made entirely from braided artificial hair extensions of a kind popular in African-American coiffures. Braiding of this kind originated in West Africa -- some of the busiest 125th Street stylists are Senegalese -- and thanks to the near-universal impact of African-American pop stars on fashion, it has renewed cachet in Africa itself. Mr. Gaba commissioned a professional hair braider in Benin, Delphine Bonou, to make the Studio Museum sculptures, working from his photographs.

The results are delightful: not quite architectural portraits, but also not caricatures. The World Financial Center is recognizable for what it is, but also looks absurd as a bastion of economic might. The Guggenheim has gone from all white to all black, a transformation to ponder. By far the most distinctive forms, though, are the ones of official buildings in Benin. At once Modernist and African, they also look futuristic, like a set of spacecraft, no two alike.

So, many strands of ''global'' -- West African, American, African-American -- weave together in this show. And what a good idea to turn monuments to masculine ambition into gravity-defying female 'dos: wigs, actually, which you can put on and take off as suits your mood. HOLLAND COTTER